1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device (e.g., user equipment (UE)) which has a quality of service (QoS) database that is provisioned and/or fine-tuned over the air by an operator of a communication network.
2. Description of Related Art
Referring to FIG. 1 (PRIOR ART), there is shown a block diagram which is used to help explain how an application's media flow(s) 101 (e.g., a push-to-talk over cellular (PoC) application, a voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) application, a video application, a file transfer application) is currently established between a UE 100 and a communication network 102. Initially, the UE 100 (in particular an application 112) and the communication network 102 (which in this example has an IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) architecture) utilize Session Description Protocol (SDP) signaling to negotiate on an application level what type of media flow(s) 101 they want to establish (see step 1). Then, the UE 100 (in particular a session manager 124) and the communication network 102 (in particular a session manager 108) attempt to activate the bearer(s) (Packet Data Protocol (PDP) context(s)) which are needed to establish the media flow(s) 101 (see steps 2a-2c). For example, if a video application 401 was desired then there would be a voice bearer and a video bearer which would need to be activated. And, if a voice application 401 was desired then just a voice bearer would need to be activated. How these bearer(s) are activated is discussed next.
First, the UE 100 needs to generate a requested QoS parameter set 104 for each of the media flow bearer(s) which it then forwards to a Serving General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) Support Node 106 (SGSN 106) (in particular the session manager 108) within the communication network 102 (see step 2a). Secondly, the session manager 108 generates and forwards a negotiated QoS parameter set 110 for each of the bearer(s) to the UE 100 (see step 2b). Thirdly, the UE 100 (in particular the session manager 124) determines whether or not to accept the negotiated QoS parameter set(s) 110 which would be used to set-up the respective bearer(s) (see step 2c). If the UE 100 accepts the negotiated QoS parameter set(s) 110, then the media flow(s) 101 is/are established with the communication network 102 (see step 3). If the UE 100 does not accept any of the negotiated QoS parameter set(s) 110, then the corresponding bearer is deactivated and the corresponding media flow 101 is not established with the communication network 102. In this document, the step where the UE 100 generates the requested QoS parameter set(s) 104 which is sent to the communication network 102 is of particular interest. How the traditional UE 100 functions to generate the requested QoS parameter set(s) 104 is discussed next.
The traditional UE 100 can generate the requested QoS parameter set(s) 104 by using the following components: an application 112; a SDP handler 114 (optional); an Internet Protocol (IP) Bearer Service (BS) manager 116 (optional); a translation/mapping function 118; a Universal Mobile Telephone Service (UMTS) BS manager 120; a UMTS QoS Parameter Per Application Type database 122; and a session manager 124. These components 112, 114, 116, 118, 120, 122 and 124 generate the requested QoS parameter set(s) 104 as follows:
A. The application 112 provides the UMTS BS Manager 120, possibly via the IP BS Manager 116 and the Translation/Mapping function 118, the relevant information needed to perform step B or step D.
B. If needed, the UMTS BS Manager 120 uses information from step A to access a proper set of QoS Parameters from the UMTS QoS Parameter Per Application Type database 122. In this document it is assumed that this step is performed.
C. If the SDP handler 114 is available, then the SDP Parameters therefrom could provide guidance for the UMTS BS Manager 120 (possibly via the IP BS manager 116 and the translation/mapping function 118) to set a maximum bitrate uplink/downlink (UL/DL) and a guaranteed bitrate UL/DL.
D. A set of QoS Parameters values from step B (or directly from step A) is possibly merged at the session manager 124 together with the maximum bitrate UL/DL and the guaranteed bitrate UL/DL from step C. The result is the requested QoS parameter set(s) 104.
For a more detailed discussion about this UE 100 and this process, reference is made to section 7.2 of the following standard:                3GPP TS 29.208 v6.5.0 entitled “3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Core Network and Terminals; End-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) Signalling Flows (Release 6)” September 2005.        
The contents of this document are incorporated by reference herein.
A problem with this particular process is that the manufacturer of the UE 100 often utilizes their own proprietary process to add QoS values into the UMTS QoS Parameter Per Application Type database 122. This scheme has several drawbacks. First, the UE 100 does not have a defined UMTS QoS Parameter Per Application Type database 122 in which QoS values can be organized and stored. Secondly, an operator can not populate/provision the UMTS QoS Parameter Per Application Type database 122. Thirdly, the operator can not fine-tune (update) the QoS values stored within the UMTS QoS Parameter Per Application Type database 122. These problems and other problems are solved by the present invention.